Abstract:
Fungi from the Teratosphaeriaceae (Mycosphaerellales; Dothideomycetes; Ascomycota)
have a wide range of lifestyles. Among these are a few species that are endolichenic fungi. However,
the known diversity of endolichenic fungi from Teratosphaeriaceae is far less understood compared
to other lineages of Ascomycota. We conducted five surveys from 2020 to 2021 in Yunnan Province of
China, to explore the biodiversity of endolichenic fungi. During these surveys, we collected multiple
samples of 38 lichen species. We recovered a total of 205 fungal isolates representing 127 species from
the medullary tissues of these lichens. Most of these isolates were from Ascomycota (118 species), and
the remaining were from Basidiomycota (8 species) and Mucoromycota (1 species). These endolichenic
fungi represented a wide variety of guilds, including saprophytes, plant pathogens, human pathogens,
as well as entomopathogenic, endolichenic, and symbiotic fungi. Morphological and molecular data
indicated that 16 of the 206 fungal isolates belonged to the family Teratosphaeriaceae. Among these
were six isolates that had a low sequence similarity with any of the previously described species
of Teratosphaeriaceae. For these six isolates, we amplified additional gene regions and conducted
phylogenetic analyses. In both single gene and multi-gene phylogenetic analyses using ITS, LSU,
SSU, RPB2, TEF1, ACT, and CAL data, these six isolates emerged as a monophyletic lineage within
the family Teratosphaeriaceae and sister to a clade that included fungi from the genera Acidiella and
Xenopenidiella. The analyses also indicated that these six isolates represented four species. Therefore,
we established a new genus, Intumescentia gen. nov., to describe these species as Intumescentia
ceratinae, I. tinctorum, I. pseudolivetorum, and I. vitii. These four species are the first endolichenic fungi
representing Teratosphaeriaceae from China.
Description:
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : All sequence data are available in NCBI GenBank following the accession
numbers in the manuscript.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS : FIGURE S1: Maximum likelihood phylogeny using ITS dataset for Teratosphaeriaceae. The bootstrap support value 75% and posterior probability 0.95 displayed above the node are ML/MP/PP. The isolates of Intumescentia gen. nov. obtained in this study are shown in bold. T = ex-type isolates; FIGURE S2: Maximum likelihood phylogeny using LSU dataset for Teratosphaeriaceae. The bootstrap support value 75% and posterior probability 0.95 displayed above the node are ML/MP/PP. The isolates of Intumescentia gen. nov. obtained in this study are shown in bold. T = ex-type isolates; FIGURE S3: Maximum likelihood phylogeny using TEF dataset for Teratosphaeriaceae. The bootstrap support value 75% and posterior probability 0.95 displayed above the node are ML/MP/PP. The isolates of Intumescentia gen. nov. obtained in this study are shown in bold. T = ex-type isolates; FIGURE S4: Maximum likelihood phylogeny using CAL dataset for Teratosphaeriaceae. The bootstrap support value 75% and posterior probability 0.95 displayed above the node are ML/MP/PP. The isolates of Intumescentia gen. nov. obtained in this study are shown in bold. T = ex-type isolates; FIGURE S5: Maximum likelihood phylogeny using RPB2 dataset for Teratosphaeriaceae. The bootstrap support value 75% and posterior probability 0.95 displayed above the node are ML/MP/PP. The isolates of Intumescentia gen. nov. obtained in this study are shown in bold. T = ex-type isolates; FIGURE S6: Maximum likelihood phylogeny using ACT dataset for Teratosphaeriaceae. The bootstrap support value 75% and posterior probability 0.95 displayed above the node are ML/MP/PP. The isolates of Intumescentia gen. nov. obtained in this study are shown in bold. T = ex-type isolates. TABLE S1: The lichen species sampled in this study, along with their sample numbers, habitat, distribution, and growth type; TABLE S2: Taxa used in the phylogenetic analyses and their corresponding GenBank numbers. T = ex-type isolates; TABLE S3: List of fungal species isolated from 38 lichen species sampled in this study and their respective guilds. Numbers in the cells indicate the number of isolates.